


Soooooo Fenestrated

by GutsAllegoryRam



Series: Fenestrate Coda [2]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1934019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GutsAllegoryRam/pseuds/GutsAllegoryRam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of the now-titled "Fenestrate Coda" series. Now from the perspective of Soul's outcare nurse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soooooo Fenestrated

The “nurse” was not a fan of the title. Couldn’t she just be considered a friend? Titles aside, she counted herself among the many people who worked with and knew Soul personally, all of whom were at a loss for his borderline obsession with returning to his apartment. From the moment Soul awoke in the hospital bed, he’d expressed a desire to return “home”.

 

It was without precedent: Soul was never one to wear his heart on his sleeve; what little emotion he showed was sly, almost teasing. He wasn’t really one to tell jokes, but lived his life almost as if it was itself a joke. Maybe that was why he didn’t have many “friends”, people who knew him more than in passing. Soul got along with, he charmed, he entertained, almost anyone who knew him, but the number of people who knew him outside of playing clubs and working his day job was… small.

 

 

There weren’t many glimpses others got of Soul’s life; he had seldom, if ever remarked of his flat in the past. He never talked about the things he kept at his apartment, about the things he did there, about the apartment itself or the neighbors. He didn’t like the hospital, in part because he was a minor celebrity, the youngest child of the illustrious and generous Evans family. This nurse had pushed to tend to him even before he’d regained consciousness, the rationale being that she was quite possibly the only person working there who knew him beyond his last name.

 

She knew that this was a person with a life to keep, not just the offspring of the single largest contributing estate in the history of the hospital. She knew just how much he kept that life, to himself, away from others: She’d known Soul for several years now, but had been to that apartment only once, maybe twice, and not any time recent at that.

 

Walking in through the door, she was shocked just how dark it was. Maybe the family had kept the shades and shutters drawn, and Soul wasn’t in any mood to put the lights on just yet. Soul was quite reserved; he moved slow, almost lazily, maybe in the summer he preferred to keep the air conditioner down and keep sunlight out. It was more shocking to see Soul wander in the front door not long after her. Wasn’t he supposed to already be there? This was a person who had been on the cusp of tears, throwing tantrums, begging doctors to let him return here, to conduct his physical therapy in the comfort of his own apartment.

 

Wasn’t his older brother supposed to be there? Wes Evans, “the man who made violins sexy” (Soul must have hated that adage) had taken the trouble to comment on the matter over his facebook page, asking fans for thoughts, prayers, sentiment for a brother who knew almost none of them and hated the majority of them. Where was he? Soul had plopped himself down on the couch, muttering to himself, as the nurse flipped on a couple lights. She was startled to notice a bruise she hadn’t seen before— had he been in a fight with Wes?

 

She hovered about him, getting a pack to put over the bruise. Soul brushed off nearly every attempt, every offer she made to make him feel better. She finally snapped at him, reminding Soul that she was merely trying to help, how he’d gotten what he wanted in the apartment—

 

“I didn’t want the fucking apartment,” he snapped. This was, perhaps, more shocking than anything else, the darkness of the apartment, the absence of Wes, Soul continued, voice cracking, “I wanted something outside my apartment, something that might be gone now—” it was alarming to see Soul so distraught, was Wes the one to— “no, he didn’t fucking hit me, he… he—” Soul shivered and trailed off. The nurse patted him, told him it’d be better not to discuss it just now. She had a few more things to do and she’d be gone for the day. Like a child being passed his teddy bear, Soul nodded gloomily and pulled his knees up, to sit in an upright fetal position.

 

It wasn’t until she returned the following day that it dawned on the nurse, Soul had been focused on the shutters. She went to open them, when Soul sprung up from the couch and snapped at her to keep them closed. He stopped himself, realizing how moody and combative he was being, apologized and asked her to keep the shades shut. Was there anything that could be opened, shades, windows? “No,” he said. He would remain silent for the duration of her visit. She’d never thought of Soul as such a delicate, temperamental person, but perhaps there was a story to tell, something recent, or even unfolding while she was away.

 

The following day she elected to sneak into the apartment, open the door as silently as possible and try to catch Soul in the midst of… something. It seemed almost cruel, insensitive, but she knew Soul enough that he would never admit whatever was plaguing his mind. She licked her lips as she turned the lock and quietly slipped the door open. The nurse didn’t even close the door all the way, as she crept into the Den and spotted Soul huddled over the crack in the shutters, peering outside. She held her breath, heart sinking as she stepped on a creaky floorboard. Soul wheeled around, gasping as the bruises covering his side bit into him, and collapsed to the floor in agony.

 

She didn’t say anything about it at first; she tended to Soul, gave him an icy hot pack and helped him over to the couch. He was tangibly bitter, shrugging off nearly every action she took. The nurse, no, the _friend_ , resolutely told Soul that she was here to help him. Whatever lay outside the shutters would stay between the two of them, but it was clearly something that needed airing.

 

“It’s a person…” he choked, his friend taken completely aback that he would admit this. There hadn’t been any sort of hesitation once pressed, he just came out and said it. “It’s a person I don’t know that well, but a… person… very important to me… ‘lives in an apartment across the alley…” It was alarming to hear Soul’s voice so shaky; he was on the verge of tears. Did Wes—

“He told her I was dead. Or made a joke. Or implied it, I don’t fucking know.”

She didn’t need to press him further; it was all finally beginning to make sense. She gave him a friendly embrace and rubbed his shoulder. He hugged back, even thanked her. She left the apartment, headed down the stairs (she preferred them to elevators) and exited the building.

 

But she lingered.

 

The nurse, the friend, the onlooker, the label didn’t matter anymore. She had to know. She _had_ to know. She looked up, tried to figure where the shutters to Soul’s flat were, and marched into the building across the alley. She scouted a floor plan, traced her footsteps, and noted a studio apartment on the fourth floor. 420 (Wasn’t that some kind of uncouth or scurrilous number? She couldn’t remember). She took the stairs. When she reached the fourth floor, she hesitated. This was intruding on Soul. _On Soul._ He never asked for anything. He never asked for help; if anything, he was asking for privacy (not verbally, of course).

 

No. Soul never asked for anything, because he didn’t know how. He didn’t realize that friends could help him to heal, to heal something beyond the motorcycle accident. She walked down the hallway, smiling to herself as she was the door numbered “420”. She was almost giddy as she walked up, a weight seeming to lift from her shoulders. Beyond that door lay closure, a reasonable explanation, a path to resolution that she _knew_ existed. The councilor, that’s what she was, and the councilor felt, on an almost spiritual level, that she was bridging a gap which had rocked Soul (and probably the inhabitant of this apartment as well) to the very core.

 

She knocked, calmly, but firmly. There was a gaping silence, and she felt her resolve crumple. God, this was so stupid. She hadn’t thought that maybe this person could be at work, that this person could have moved, that she could even have the wrong apartment. But the door opened. It was a girl. She was petite, and looked nothing like a girl the nurse, the friend, the councilor, the confidant of Soul might ever have expected to obsess him in the way that she had. In spite of her doubts on reaching the door, she recognized at once a gloomy pall that seemed to hang over this girl. Her doubts evaporated, but her resolve rebounded, stronger than ever. She extended her hand with as comforting a smile as she could manage.

 

“Hello,” she said, “My name’s Tsubaki.”

**Author's Note:**

> BOY I hope I didn't telegraph the ending too badly. Keyser Söze syndrome, boh boh boh!
> 
> Title is a nod to the hook of this completely-unfitting and inappropriate jam:  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LeL7YkP-Y


End file.
